By the Hogwarts Lake
by timelordroots
Summary: Hermione was just thinking to herself by the Hogwarts lake when Fred comes along. One-shot. Fred/Hermione


**A/N:** Random little one-shot. School is starting tomorrow so I don't know when I'll be updating The Unlikely Marriage but for now I just wrote a one-shot. Enjoy…

**Disclaimer: **If I owned Harry Potter, I wouldn't be writing this!

Hermione let out a sigh as her eyes wandered the landscape of the Hogwarts Lake, watching the sun slowly set, colours varying from orange to purple. She was sitting criss-cross by the edge of the lake, mind scattered with petty thoughts, which were overtaken by thoughts of school, Harry and Ron, and her messed up love life. As she thought, the Giant Squid was swimming around freely, looking as if it had not a care in the world. _Must be nice, _Hermione thought. _No drama, no school, no nothing._

Her mind wandered back to today's events. She talked back to Umbridge for her lack of teaching abilities, and paid the price for it with her horrific detentions. Hermione's hand still stung with pain, but she forced herself to push the pain away. A pain struck her hand, and covered it with the palm of her other hand, sharply inhaling a breath. Hermione scrunched up her eyes, forcing back the tears threatening to shed in pain.

To distract her mind from her open-wounded hand, she listened closely to the soothing sound of the lakes' small waves ripple and trickle. Hermione closed her eyes tightly and inhaled a deep breath, exhaling a yoga fire breath. She leaned closer to the lake and saw her reflection in the water. Nothing has changed, she saw herself, her same bushy, untamed brown hair, same brown eyes, same everything. Except this time, she didn't have her nose absorbed in a book. Hermione gave herself a small, pathetic smile.

"Sickle for your thoughts."

Hermione hastily leaned back, narrowly dodging falling into the lake herself, and whipped her head around, scowling to herself, wondering who would interrupt her precious thinking time. To her knowledge, no one knew she came out here at sunset on particularly rough days.

Of course, the last person who she wanted to confront her, it was Fred Weasley, staring at her, with his hands shoved into his pockets.

Hermione consciously put her unharmed hand on top of her other, concealing her burning hand, which was her first instinct. The last thing she wanted was for Fred to find out, and give Umbridge the satisfaction that she cracked under the agony. She pursed her lips together tightly, trying in vain not to scream as another shock of pain that just throbbed through her hand. She managed to squeak out a, "Hello".

"Are you okay, Hermione?" Fred said in a rather serious tone. A tone that Hermione was not used to, opposed to his usual carefree, calm voice.

All Hermione could muster was a pathetic nod, and twisted herself to face the lake again, her back to Fred. _Please just leave, please just leave, please just leave…_ was all Hermione could think of. _Just turn away and march right back up to the castle. I don't need to be interrogated right now._

Fred silently took a seat next to her, his long legs spread out in front of him, arms behind him, supporting his weight. He quietly hummed to a Weird Sisters song, staring at the Giant Squid swimming around lonely. Hermione couldn't help but smile, closing her eyes and attempting to clear obnoxious thoughts out of her system. Hermione felt quite awkward over the uncomfortable silence, and bit her lip for two reasons. One, because she did so when she was in an awkward position, and two, to keep her under control from crying and screaming in pain.

Fred sat up a little bit straighter, lazily grabbed for a small stone that was lying by the shore, and absent-mindedly skipped it across the lake, giving off a smug smile, apparently quite satisfied with the length the little stone went.

Hermione chuckled quietly, as he went to grab for another stone. But this time, he turned to Hermione and asked her, "Do you know how to skip stones?"

Hermione sheepishly shook her head, quite ashamed she could not do such a simple task. Fred let out a faux gasp of shock, clutching his chest. "Whaa? The great Hermione Granger cannot skip a single stone? I'm amazed!"

She snorted and playfully shoved his shoulder with her other hand, careful not to expose her detention hand, and let out an exasperated scowl.

"Here, let me show you." Fred offered, standing up, brushing the dirt off his robes and extended a hand to Hermione. She stared at the offered hand for a few seconds as if it was on fire.

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, it's just a hand. It won't bite." Fred assured, laughing. She hesitated for a moment but grasped her hand in his, pulling herself up with his help.

Fred scooped up a few stones from the shore and gave one to Hermione, one to himself, and dropped the rest carelessly on the ground.

"Okay, so basically, first, you want to angle your wrist like this," Fred explained, angling his wrist to an obtuse angle. "… and then, you sort of just have to – um – flick it, like this – " Fred whipped his stone and it skipped it far, the stone disappearing into the fading sunset. "It's all in the wrist." Fred teased, brushing off his shoulders in a cocky way.

Hermione laughed and attempted to imitate Fred, but lamely just threw the stone in the water, causing it to drown into the lakes' depths. She turned to him, smiling sheepishly and Fred laughed.

"That's going to need a lot more work," Fred teased. "Let me help."

Fred stepped closer to Hermione and placed his hand gently on top of hers (which she made sure was the better hand), and guided her hand to flick her wrist and it remarkably skipped quickly and far. Hermione felt somewhat awkward in her position, with Fred's hand on hers, but weirdly enough felt relaxed.

"… Like that." Fred said quietly, grabbing another stone and passing it to her. "Try it yourself, now."

Hermione bit her lip in concentration, and mimicked what Fred just did, and it skipped three times, which was a good start. She turned to Fred, and he wore the Weasley twin sly smile, satisfied with his teachings.

"You're getting the hang of it!" Fred said brightly, and passed a few rocks her way once again.

Hermione doesn't exactly know how long they skipped rocks with each other, but it felt reassuring for some reason to just be close to Fred. It was getting darker by the minute, and she was sure it was nearing curfew, she had to model as a prefect! Hermione was so caught up in her thoughts that she bluntly forgot about her hand, and Fred's presence, and absent-mindedly gritted her teeth in seething pain when another aching pain struck her hand again. Fred whipped his head to face Hermione, and hurried to her side.

"Are you okay?" Fred asked nervously, trying to examine her hand.

"Y-yes. It-it's just-" But before Hermione could finish, Fred saw what was inscribed in her hand.

_I will not be an insufferable know-it-all._

Fred stared at the words with eyes as wide as saucers, and looked up to lock eyes with Hermione, his eyes deep with anger.

"Who did this to you?" Fred asked, shaking with rage.

"Nobody… it was nobody…" Hermione pathetically replied, which didn't even convince herself.

He stroked her hand gently with his thumb, and then whipped out his wand, casting a healing charm on it. The pain did not disappear completely, but it was a lot better than before. Hermione was so wrapped up in everything around her, she forgot to use her common sense and cast a healing charm herself.

Hermione could not control the dam she built and just let it all out, let the tears flow freely and clutched Fred, sobbing into his chest with agony.

Fred was startled at first, but then calmed and stroked her hair silently, muttering soothing words. He gently brushed away the tears from her eyes with his thumb.

Hermione was really embarrassing herself with her sudden outburst, but couldn't contain anymore tears. They stood like that for a while, but then it was getting really dark out and she reluctantly pulled away and muttered a "Sorry".

Fred just shook his head and shrugged as if saying, _It's nothing,_ and suggested going back to the castle. Hermione nodded but while he started to trudge up to the castle with her, she stopped him short by placing a hand on his shoulder. He swiveled around and was about to ask why they stopped when Hermione went on the tip of her toes and placed her lips onto his.

Fred's eyes widened at first but then absorbed into the kiss, and then closed his eyes, and put his arm around her waist and the other behind her head. Hermione put her arms around his neck and felt sparks and saw fireworks bursting in all different colours in her mind.

After a moment, they both pulled away because of lack of air. Hermione's cheeks and Fred's ears were bright red, but it was hard to see when it was so dark outside. They both stood there, staring at each other until Hermione choked out a "Thanks… for everything." She gave him a small smile and ran up to the castle before he could piece any coherent thoughts together.

**A/N:** Tada. That was just a cute little one-shot that was just swimming in my mind. Thanks for reading! Reviews are _loooooooooove_!


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